Not To Do

1_Buddha_Under_the_Bo_Tree.jpg
Buddha sitting under the Bo Tree with Buddha Banner. Leeds Retreat, early December.

‘Tis the eve of Christmas now and all through the house not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. The food has been eaten, the dishes all washed, the candles extinguished, dah, dah, dee, dah dee dah dee dah! The world is nestled all snug in bed. (miss the next bit…) And now I’m settling my brain for a long winter’s nap. After The Night Before Christmas poem. Quite a long way after!

Outside from my high vantage point all is in darkness, in a ghostly light. Snow. Moonlit snow. Blue. Is that a car picking it’s way down on the Alston road? Across the valley a farm light is on. Closer the tree tubes stand sentinel around the cemetery. Up there high to the left, the moon. A sulky moon? Sulking in mist. Now shine, now not shine. An icicle glints a shaft of clear light. Now gone, with the moon.

When the world goes to bed it is, sometimes, good not do the same. Not always so easy to not do the same. Generally.

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6 thoughts on “Not To Do”

  1. I also love staying up late, I think the night is my favourite time – all the better if there’s a good moon to share it with. And don’t you just love the words they use to describe the phases of the moon…’waning gibbous’! My problem is more about making myself get to bed at a suitable time (fit in?) so that I can be good for something in the morning.

    ..I recall with intense fondness the odd sleepless midnight during my London days when I’d head up to Primrose Hill and spend time with other insomniac types who’d gather up there. Something very special about the sight of the city all stretched out and lit up beneath us, just for us. The feeling that we were part of the life of the city that was reserved for the sleepless few, and that the ‘able to sleep’ majority would never be privy to, created something very special to me. I still love London for that gift.

  2. you like the image. When I ‘smalled’ the file for uploading the photograph changed from just ordinary to something I feel is a bit special. A happy accident. I know very little about this new fangled digital photograph, being raised with black and white film and then a brief excursion into colour, slide and film.

  3. Great image there from your London late night, early morning sleepless few days.

    When I have got past the 7.30pm to 8.30pm low energy period I can keep going into the wee hours. For the most part I don’t stay up unless it is for a ceremony, for example tomorrow with the new year ceremony. Or maybe I’m working on something that needs to be finished and just keeping on going while all around me are asleep. But I don’t make a habit of that. Being ‘good for something in the morning’ is all important. The world is geared around ‘early to bed, early to rise’. There is an assumption that people are awake, fully awake, in the morning!

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